Modern Art Must Cure My Disease

Link to Baudelaire essay:

http://eres.sfsu.edu/eres/docs/33513/art_202_s05_f9.pdf

First off, I think I'm too focused on the way that Baudelaire is writing, rather than what he is saying. I love his syntax. There is such an emotion and sense of sarcasm in his voice that I L-O-V-E! His way of wording is so, so powerful and hilarious. Like he is truly disgusted with his society and the way it is portrayed. Why are artists trying to idealize in their works a society that is not deserving of the Classical treatment? A society that doesn't even fit into the mold of the Classic forms and ways and beliefs? One that is so caught up in themselves, that they don't even need to have an artist represent/re-create them-- a simple mirror would suffice. And though this essay was written in the 18th century, the frivolousness, excess, narcissism, and decadence that once plagued Baudelaire's society, is still--if not even more so-- plaguing our own society today. People now in days are sick with self-indulgence, and art isn't always reflecting it appropriately. Baudelaire is calling for the attention of the modern artist, who has an open eye to what is both current and true.

A funny thing while reading this was the comments he made about women in (his) society and how they were being portrayed versus how they really were. Women were objects, complete artifice. They were there to be seen, and not concerned with the fact that there was nothing going on underneath all the pretty pin-curls and petticoats. It totally reminds me of when I get together with my girlfriends and go out. Getting ready is like an event, with great amounts of pressure added-- stemming not from the notion that we might meet some handsome suitor that night, but rather from the crude competition that one MUST look the best out of all of us, according to us, and according to the other FEMALES that we might see out that night. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Girls dress for Girls". Sure, we care what a boy might think of how we look, but really what it comes down to is how we compare ourselves to the other women we see. Going out is a matter of being seen. It's sitting around with a drink in your hand, acting unaware of what's going on around you, but knowing every detail of what is happening. It's acting completely complacent, when you're freaking out at the fact that everyone may, at one time or another, be looking at you. Baudelaire said it best when he described it in this way:

"And now the doors are being thrown open at Valentino's, at the Prado or the Casino -- those Bedlams where the exuberance of idle youth is given free rein. Women who have exaggerated fashion to the extent of perverting its charm and totally destroying its aims, are ostentatiously sweeping the floor with their trains and the fringes of their shawls; they come and go, pass and repass, opening an astonished eye like animals, giving an impression of total blindness, but missing nothing."

How true this is, and how guilty I am of partaking in it. How many times have I stomped around a lounge or a bar, seemingly blind to my surroundings, but being more intuitive than at any other part of my day? How many times have I freaked to do some last minute shopping so I could look as fabulous as possible wherever I might be going, and then when I got there made sure to make it a point to float about in hopes that someone might notice my fancy-schmancy ensemble? How lame am I? And how imperative it is for an artist, a modern artist, to expose this viciously vain conceit that is a disease to our current societal norms/beliefs, and that is often fueled by the popular images within it.

We've talked about how art and image influence a society. It then is important that these images are portraying the truth, rather than idealizing it, because then it will only reproduce a society that is still unaware, and only aware of itself.

That is the plight of the modern painter. That is what must be done!